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Authors: Beth Gutcheon
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weeks, Norman made her promise to take him home and never let them take him again, and she kept the promise. She was holding his hand when he died, although there was so little of him left by then that he slipped away without a ripple, and she missed it.
Norman Trainer had been the only person left alive who didn’t call her Catherine. He had called her Caddy, as she had been called when she was little. Now no one called her that. Grandchildren might have, if she had any. She always thought that she would teach her grandchildren to call her Caddy, as she couldn’t imagine she 48 / Beth Gutcheon
would ever feel old enough to be Granny. But to have grandchildren you had to have children, and she was lacking those.
She and Norman had had a full life though. Norman was an electrical inspector for the city, which was a terribly interesting job.
He was always meeting new people and visiting new sites, and people always liked Norman. He had honest eyes. And she had her children at school. No one but Norman knew to what extent they became, in her mind, her own children. She yearned over the little ones in the preschool, watching them grow up on their way to her.
She followed the big ones as they moved to the upper school, and then off into the big world. She followed them around the campus with her eyes; she followed them in her mind’s eye when they physically departed. She had never missed a Homecoming at The Country School in all her nineteen years. She loved to see the grown-up strangers approach her, great twenty-five-year-olds whom she had taught when they were ten, and see them smile and exclaim
“Mrs. Trainer!” You could see in their eyes how they had loved her.
And they knew that she loved them.
Catherine made fifth grade fun. If she did an Egypt project they all made a model of King Tut’s tomb. When they studied the Age of Discovery, they made model Ninas and Pintas and sailed them on the carp pond, and then they studied the People of the Americas and did things like making a whole meal of foods eaten by Incas.
She taught her children to sprout beans in little dishes as the Natives of New England had taught the Pilgrims to do, to avoid scurvy in the long winters. They made popcorn, of course, and they read about pemmican, a convenience food made of sun-dried strips of deer or buffalo meat, packed in leather pouches with melted fat for energy, and often mixed with dried blueberries or cranberries for flavor and vitamins. The children felt this would be fun to make but too disgusting to actually eat. Likewise the cooking methods of the nomads of the plains, the tipi-dwelling Sioux, Cheyenne, and the like. Catherine taught how they trailed their tipi poles, skins, and fur robes along behind their horses or women (the two beasts of burden) on the trail, but they didn’t carry any pottery or cookware.
For a cooking pot they used a buffalo stomach, which they would fill with meat and fat and whatever vegetables might be gathered, then bury it in a hole filled with steaming hot rocks, and let it Saying Grace / 49
simmer. Then they dug it up and ate the stew, and then the pot. The children thought that would be gross, if you didn’t wrap it in alu-minum foil before you buried it.
A favorite project was the Sweat Lodge, which the fifth grade built each year on its Indian Overnight. For safety this was held on campus at the school. Parents helped each year to erect three genuine Cheyenne tipis, whose poles were stored in the Bus Barn and the skins in Catherine’s garage. The skins were actually marine duck, now smoke-stained and painted all around with pictograph accounts of battles and buffalo hunts. Every fall the children helped to cut and peel new tent pegs and lacing pegs from shrubs on campus, as the Indians would have. On the night of the Overnight, Catherine and Norman cooked and served maize (corn on the cob) and stuffed buffalo gut (hot dogs) in the Mess Tipi. The tipi was furnished in the ceremonial
Norman Trainer had been the only person left alive who didn’t call her Catherine. He had called her Caddy, as she had been called when she was little. Now no one called her that. Grandchildren might have, if she had any. She always thought that she would teach her grandchildren to call her Caddy, as she couldn’t imagine she 48 / Beth Gutcheon
would ever feel old enough to be Granny. But to have grandchildren you had to have children, and she was lacking those.
She and Norman had had a full life though. Norman was an electrical inspector for the city, which was a terribly interesting job.
He was always meeting new people and visiting new sites, and people always liked Norman. He had honest eyes. And she had her children at school. No one but Norman knew to what extent they became, in her mind, her own children. She yearned over the little ones in the preschool, watching them grow up on their way to her.
She followed the big ones as they moved to the upper school, and then off into the big world. She followed them around the campus with her eyes; she followed them in her mind’s eye when they physically departed. She had never missed a Homecoming at The Country School in all her nineteen years. She loved to see the grown-up strangers approach her, great twenty-five-year-olds whom she had taught when they were ten, and see them smile and exclaim
“Mrs. Trainer!” You could see in their eyes how they had loved her.
And they knew that she loved them.
Catherine made fifth grade fun. If she did an Egypt project they all made a model of King Tut’s tomb. When they studied the Age of Discovery, they made model Ninas and Pintas and sailed them on the carp pond, and then they studied the People of the Americas and did things like making a whole meal of foods eaten by Incas.
She taught her children to sprout beans in little dishes as the Natives of New England had taught the Pilgrims to do, to avoid scurvy in the long winters. They made popcorn, of course, and they read about pemmican, a convenience food made of sun-dried strips of deer or buffalo meat, packed in leather pouches with melted fat for energy, and often mixed with dried blueberries or cranberries for flavor and vitamins. The children felt this would be fun to make but too disgusting to actually eat. Likewise the cooking methods of the nomads of the plains, the tipi-dwelling Sioux, Cheyenne, and the like. Catherine taught how they trailed their tipi poles, skins, and fur robes along behind their horses or women (the two beasts of burden) on the trail, but they didn’t carry any pottery or cookware.
For a cooking pot they used a buffalo stomach, which they would fill with meat and fat and whatever vegetables might be gathered, then bury it in a hole filled with steaming hot rocks, and let it Saying Grace / 49
simmer. Then they dug it up and ate the stew, and then the pot. The children thought that would be gross, if you didn’t wrap it in alu-minum foil before you buried it.
A favorite project was the Sweat Lodge, which the fifth grade built each year on its Indian Overnight. For safety this was held on campus at the school. Parents helped each year to erect three genuine Cheyenne tipis, whose poles were stored in the Bus Barn and the skins in Catherine’s garage. The skins were actually marine duck, now smoke-stained and painted all around with pictograph accounts of battles and buffalo hunts. Every fall the children helped to cut and peel new tent pegs and lacing pegs from shrubs on campus, as the Indians would have. On the night of the Overnight, Catherine and Norman cooked and served maize (corn on the cob) and stuffed buffalo gut (hot dogs) in the Mess Tipi. The tipi was furnished in the ceremonial
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